Astronotes: January 9 - January 22 2005

A private commercial space
mission has been blueprinted in the form of a robotic observatory to conduct
astronomy and astrophysics from the Moon.

The International Lunar
Observatory (ILO) initiative envisions a multi-wavelength observatory that
would stand about 10-feet (three-meters) in height, with communications and
solar power gathering capabilities.

Engineering studies of the
idea point to a modest $35 million to $50 million needed to plant ILO on the
Moon. If those funds were soon available, the observatory could be parked on
the Moon in the mid-2007 time frame. SpaceDev, Inc. of Poway, California
has worked out the logistics of the mission, finding it realistic with a worthy
goal in an achievable timeframe.

The ILO's
feasibility was detailed by a SpaceDev study team under contract with the Lunar Enterprise
Corporation, an arm of Space Age Publishing Company (SPC) with offices in Kamuela, Hawaii and Palo Alto, California.

A pre-deployed lunar-based
navigation beacon system would enable the ILO to fly to and softly set down at
a specific lunar site with the accuracy of about 330 feet (100 meters) - made
possible by using currently available commercial Global Positioning System
(GPS) technology.

An
ILO Advisory Committee has been formed, with members hailing from Canada, Japan,
India, Russia, Europe, and across the United States.
Additional members are currently being identified in China as well as other key global
space and astrophysics centers.

This year, the ILO group
will scope out the most meaningful scientific return possible from placement of
a small robotic telescope at the lunar South Pole. The newly-formed ILO
Advisory Committee "is challenged to establish a toe-hold for lunar base
build-out," says SPC founder Steve Durst.

-- Leonard David

January 20

China Plans Next Manned Space Shot

BEIJING (AP) -- China said Thursday its second
manned space mission will take place in September or October 2005, and will
involve two astronauts orbiting for up to five days.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Shenzhou
6 will have a four- or five-day flight with two astronauts aboard, citing Sun Laiyan, director of China National Space Administration.
The astronauts will carry out unspecified scientific tests while in orbit, Xinhua said. The government said earlier it hoped to carry
out the flight before the end of 2005.

If it occurs, it will come two years
after China
became the third nation to launch a human into space on its own, firing Yang Liwei
into orbit. In October 2003, Yang circled the Earth 14 times and landed by
parachute in China's
northern grasslands after a 21 1/2-hour flight.

China
attaches enormous national pride to its space program, and Yang has become a
celebrity. In addition to China,
only Russia and the United States
have sent humans into space on their own.

State media has said 14
astronauts - all military pilots - were in training for the flight.

-- Associated Press

January 18

IGNITE Auctioning NASA
Tour for Hospitalized Children

Your bid on a tour-for-two of Kennedy Space
Center could lead to bringing an
astronaut to Boston
to visit seriously ill children.

The Ignite Foundation, a Massachusetts-based non-profit (501c3)
organization that develops and supports education enrichment programs, working
with the Starlight/ Starbright Foundation of New
England, is auctioning a KSC travel package to fund an astronaut's visit to a
Boston-area children's ward, as part of Starlight's Hospital Happenings
Programs.

The
auction, which opened Saturday for 10 days of bidding on collectSPACE.com,
includes two round-trip AirTran Airways tickets, 3
nights at the DoubleTree Hotel Cocoa Beach
Oceanfront, a car rental voucher, tickets to the KSC Visitor Complex and a
private, astronaut-led tour of the NASA center.

The Seattle-based Blue
Origin group, led by billionaire Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame, has
picked a site near Van Horn,
Texas to construct, test, and fly
a privately-built passenger-carrying suborbital vehicle.

According to Thursday's
Internet Edition of The Van Horn Advocate, Blue Origin has confirmed plans to
establish a testing and operations center on the Corn Ranch, north of Van Horn.

The Advocate was briefed by
Bezos and other team members in the newspaper's
offices regarding details of the rocket program. Bezos
said that some of his younger days were spent on his grandfather's ranch in
South Texas, and looked forward to future family experiences at the newly
acquired West Texas ranch.

While details of Blue
Origin's rocket remain secretive, it is widely believed that Bezos and his colleagues are blueprinting a suborbital
passenger vehicle capable of vertical takeoff and landing. The approach is
similar to that taken by the Delta Clipper program sponsored by NASA and the
Pentagon in the 1993 to 1996 time period.

Blue Origin is opening its
doors to students that are focused on careers in science and technology. A
10-week summer internship in space program is to start in early June and end in
August of this year.

"You must be enrolled in an undergraduate or
graduate degree program in science or engineering and must currently have
Junior or higher standing. Students must be United States citizens, permanent
residents, refugees, or asylees," the firm's web
site declares.

Blue Origin is on the
lookout for like-minded rocketeers. "We are
building real hardware - not PowerPoint presentations," the company's web
site at http://www.blueorigin.com/
declares.

-- Leonard David

January 13

Huygens Probe: Snapshots
from Titan

Following a seven year sojourn to Saturn, Europe's
Huygens probe is nearing its final destination. It will plunge into the
atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn, on January 14.

Fireballing and then parachuting its way toward
Titan's mysterious surface, the two-hour dive will yield science data and a
suite of panoramic images.

Huygens is outfitted with
the Descent Imager- Spectral Radiometer (DISR). The DISR is the most
sophisticated instrument aboard Huygens. It will take pictures of the surface
as the probe descends on parachute. DISR will collect approximately 1,100
images as the probe spirals toward Titan's surface, producing mosaics of the
ground and horizon in various resolutions.

Not Titan, but north of Tucson. Test image taken
by Huygens camera system. Image Credit: University of Arizona/Lunar & Planetary
Laboratory

Each of the cameras in the
imaging system takes a picture of Titan's surface in a different direction and
at a different resolution to produce a "triplet" collection of three
images which may be combined with other triplets to create a mosaic of the
surface.

What will the view from Huygens look
like? DISR team members conducted field tests over Red Rock Arizona, just north
of Tucson, to
create a simulated descent mosaic.

Even though linear field
arrangements in the test mosaic won't be seen, the quality of the image will be
similar, said Katie Holso,
a spokesperson for the DISR at the University
of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary
Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona.

The mosaic is made up of
roughly 20 postage stamp-sized individual pictures taken from the three DISR
cameras. These images are then combined and processed to create the mosaic, Holso told SPACE.com.

-- Leonard David

January 11

UFO Big Top

Something quite odd is
making multiple appearances under European skies, taking on the looks of a
hovering Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO.

But this UFO is identified,
and comes courtesy of NoFit
State Circus Company, based in the United Kingdom.

By converting outer space to
inner space means the huge tent can handle various venues, from product
launches to hospitality events and all-star performances. Not only
state-of-the-art in its structure, accompanying lighting, sound and digital
video technology provides the very latest in special effects and dramatic
staging.

"It is ideal for
big-scale, need-to-be-noticed events," explains Rob O'Dowd, Managing
Director of Euro Events, an Irish-based event production company who recently
used the tent-for-hire to support BMW's 1-Series automobile launch.

While this UFO isn't quite
up to speed in the sense of interstellar travel, it does give new meaning to
pulling up stakes, folding up your tent and moving on!

-- Leonard David

January 10

Feel the Force:
Ultra-tiny Magnetic Sensor

Engineers are attracted to
the idea of building ever-smaller sensors. Now they've come up with a device to
detect minuscule fluctuations in the pull of magnetic fields.

Researchers at the U.S.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated a
low-power, magnetic sensor. About the size of a grain of rice, the device can
detect magnetic field changes as small as 50 picoteslas
- that's a million times weaker than the Earth's magnetic field.

Applications for a
commercialized version of the new sensor could include hand-held devices for
precision navigation, geophysical mapping to locate minerals or oil, use in
medical instruments, and for sensing unexploded ordnance.

The sensor works by
detecting minute changes in the energy levels of electrons in the presence of a
magnetic field. A tiny sample of the element rubidium is heated within a
sealed, transparent cell to form a rubidium vapor. Light from a semiconductor
laser is transmitted through the atomic vapor. In the presence of a magnetic
field, the amount of laser light that is absorbed by the atoms changes and this
is detected by a photocell. Larger magnetic fields produce proportionally
bigger changes in the atomic energy levels and change the absorption by the
atom.

Described in the December
27 issue of Applied Physics Letters, the device can be powered with batteries
and is about 100 times smaller than current atom-based sensors with similar
sensitivities, which typically weigh roughly 6 pounds (about 3 kilograms).

The research was funded by
the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA-MTO).